Soderling vs. Nadal – 2009 French Open

In case you missed the upset of a lifetime, here’s the match in its entirety.  Robin Soderling does the unthinkable and hands Rafael Nadal his first loss ever at Roland Garros.  Nadal had won the previous four titles there, a run involving 31 consecutive match wins.

From the 2006 quarterfinals onward, he lost only two sets.  Let me make that clear:  In 20 matches, he only twice allowed an opponent to win ONE set.  Therefore, the idea of one person taking THREE sets off Nadal in the same match seems all the more preposterous.   Not only did Soderling do this, but he did so without having to play a fifth set.  I think this pretty clearly illustrates the magnitude of his accomplishment.  Especially since Nadal manhandled Soderling on clay in Rome barely a month ago, with Nadal conceding only one game!

In a discussion on The Tennis Channel, John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova expectedly labeled the match one of the greatest upsets in tennis history.  But they also brought up a past-era analogy by pointing out Björn Borg, who with Nadal is considered arguably the greatest clay-court player of all-time.  Of the nine French Opens contested between 1973 to 1981, Borg won the title six times and lost only twice (he didn’t play in ’77).  But those two losses were to the same player:  Adriano Panatta, who defeated him in the 1973 round of 16 and the 1976 quarterfinals.  It’s an apt comparison, since Panatta and Soderling both beat men otherwise unbeatable on the Parisian terre battue.

Without further ado, here’s the full match of Soderling def. Nadal, 2009 French Open fourth round, 6-2, 6-7(2), 6-4, 7-6(2):

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Wolverine himself uses Free Comic Book Day to Promote Literacy

Hundreds of thousands of comic book fans across the continent flocked to participating vendors yesterday in celebration of Free Comic Book Day.

Not familiar?  Okay, well, beginning in 2002, a panel of comic-book distributors, retailers, publishers, and suppliers got together and decided to organize an event promoting comic readership. The result was “Free Comic Book Day,” during which comic-book stores across North America would give away free copies of select comics. You can go to the official website for more information and photos from yesterday’s festivities.

As a way to encourage younger readers, Hugh Jackman invited children to take part:

My, how things have changed since the days of Dr. Frederick Wertham, the McCarthy-era crusader who lashed out against comics, deeming them a corrupting force and a danger to America’s youth.  He even went so far as to say that “Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry.” By 1954, his outrage helped catalyze the development of the Comics Code Authority, a set of mandatory guidelines to which all published comics must conform.

Now, 50 years later, grad students in the arts and social sciences are writing theses on comic books, treating them as (heaven forbid) a legitimate artform.  Titles include “The Pictorial and Linguistic Features of Comic Book Formulas,” “Comic Book Creativity as Displaced Aggression,” and “The Evolution of Social Norms and the Life of Lois Lane.”

Who knew?

The State FINALLY on DVD!!

If you’re a fan of the 90s MTV comedy sketch show The State — which launched the careers of many current members of Reno 911! — your day has finally arrived!

For years, fans petitioned to get a DVD of The State released, and MTV gave various excuses as to why it wouldn’t be commercially viable.  But it appears it’s finally official!  The DVD set will appear in stores on July 14!

If you’re unfamiliar with this lost relic of Gen X pop culture, do yourself a favor and watch a few of the videos below:

One of my favorites, the “International Signs” sketch:

A different kind of copy shop:

A father and son race home…sort of…

Some strained fast-food employee interaction:

And just for fun, the trailer for the DVD, which features excerpts from the kick-ass theme song:

Sesame Street Censored

Remember how the DVD release of the first seasons of Sesame Street came with a warning label that stated the show might not be appropriate for “today’s preschool child”?

Well…here are some reimaginings of familiar Sesame Street moments that might not even be appropriate for adults:

The Count and his favorite hobby:

Bert and Ernie teach the importance of nocturnal hygiene:

Big Bird and Kermit receive medicinal aid:

A couple clips featured on Jimmy Kimmel (brilliant!):

Triptrop provides colorful way to gauge your commute length

I love The Gothamist.  Today, they linked to a spiffy new tool called Triptrop. Here’s how it works:

You type in an address in New York, and it produces an eye-poppingly variegated map of the city letting you know how long it will take to commute to various locations!

As an example, here’s a map with Grand Central as its focal point:

The creator of this wonder is Jonathan Soma, who lives in Brooklyn.  And Triptrop is not his only brain child.  He also created, among other things, a program that lets you know what everyone in Japan is doing right now, a site for “astronomy porn”, and “Snacksby”, which he describes as “like Macgyver, but for food”.

Fake MTA Advisory Signs

For those of you not in New York, the Metro Transit Authority (MTA) — which runs New York’s subway and bus systems — has been hit hard by the recession, and as a result, it recently announced that monthly passes would increase in cost from $81 to $103.

Still a shitload cheaper than owning a car, which involves paying for gas, oil changes, maintenance, insurance, etc. But understandably, New Yorkers are irked, especially since the fare hike will coincide with service cuts (two subway lines and many more bus lines will disappear completely, and all remaining service will run with diminished frequency).

New Yorkers are taking out there anger in various ways. On the Downtown 4 Train from Harlem, for example, I heard a shabby looking gentleman screaming to anyone who’d listen about “bourgeois bullshit”.

But some are putting their anger to creative use. Last week, The Gothamist reported on some fake advisory signs that were posted in various stations around the city. The centerpiece was this gem, seen at the Metropolitan stop off the G Line:

Sure, the grammar is atrocious, but for some reason, I find that makes it funnier.

Here’s another grammatically incorrect but nonetheless hilarious sign on an unidentified line:

In searching the Gothamist archives, I also found this story , which links to some more fake signage and also features some hilarious comments from font nerds.

And this site, which let’s you create your own fake subway sign! It’s outdated, but still fun.  And some of the entries in the gallery (linked at the bottom of the page) are just brilliant

Twitter Haiku

I still don’t get the point of Twitter, but since it’s growing exponentially in popularity, I thought I’d pay tribute with a little haiku.  FYI, I coin the term “Twitt” to refer to a Twitter user.

This is done from the point-of-view of the Twitter punditry:

We shouldn’t be twits
But rather should we be Twitts
Or something betwixt

I’ve also been able to take my initial annoyance at the term “tweet” — which describes updates on Twitter and can be used as both a noun and a verb — and turn it into fun imaginary conjugations.  For example:

“Hey dude, did you send me a tweet?”
“Yeah, man, I totally twoted [tw-oh-ted] you an hour ago.”

By the way, if someone uses Twitter to remind me that I have a lunch appointment with him/her, have I in fact been “tweeted to lunch”?

Or if two opposing factions make amends on Twitter, have they in fact enacted a ?

Okay, maybe I’ll forget I just said those things.  I need some clarity, because at the moment, I’m hopelessly Twitterpated:

Ray Harryhausen homage through genetic mutations

A friend of mine recently blogged about strange birth defects in animals and included a link to an eye-popping slide show. I took a glance, and I was particularly impressed with the two-faced kittens, the conjoined-twin crocodiles, and the six-legged sheep.

I experienced a little déjà vu, however, when I was introduced to the two-headed tortoise and Cy the one-eyed kitten. I finally came to the realization that I was recalling one my favorite movies growing up…

It was The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, a 1958 Technicolor adventure movie whose monsters and stop-motion animations were conceived by creature-feature ubermeister Ray Harryhausen. (Harryhausen, incidentally, was a major influence on Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings), Joe Dante (Gremlins, Small Soldiers), and Tim Burton.) The film was also scored by Bernard Herrmann — my single favorite film scorer — who wrote the music for Citizen Kane, Psycho, Vertigo, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Taxi Driver, among others.

The following side-by-side comparisons make me think that God is a Harryhausen fan and just wanted to pay a little homage to 7th Voyage of Sinbad by creating these curiosities:

Oh, and here’s a clip of the Cyclops’s first appearance in the film. The clip is chopped up, so it would probably help to know that the little cartwheeling fireball is a prepubescent genie with spiffy magical powers:

Damn, why don’t they make ‘em like this anymore?

Anyways, as if that weren’t enough, in gathering the pictures for this post, I stumbled upon this illustration from Seattle artist Robert Rini:

Bad kitty!

Bally Total Fitness wants you to return to the womb!

The following is, I kid you not, a genuine excerpt from a contract with Bally Total Fitness.  You know Bally’s…the club that uses chiseled male torsos and scantily clad women to promise you a rocket body if you just join.

I thought that once the contract showed up, they’d cut the bullshit, since they’re just trying to sign you up as quickly as possible.  But apparently, they really want you to get intimate with their female members.  Intimate…as in inside their birth canals:

“If you have any questions, please call your home club or contact Member cervices.

See you at the club,

Bally Total Fitness”

I could pick on the fact that Bally’s contract writers aren’t spelling-bee champions, but much more fun to assume that all the egregious flirting that goes on in almost every Bally’s I’ve ever walked into — and much more, from what I’ve heard from friends who are Bally’s employees and scout the locker rooms every now and then — is the result of horny members taking the company quite literally at its (misspelled) word.

I could also get pedantic and preach the values of correct spelling, but I think I’ll let the lesson here be:

Never assume that “returning to the womb” is solely metaphorical.

Film Review: Hunger (2008)

I thought I knew how I felt about Hunger, which won British artist-turned-filmmaker Steve McQueen the Camera d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.  But after reading J. Hoberman’s review, I don’t feel as confident. Damn those good critics who are smarter than I!

I suspect, however, that I’ll retain my position. Hoberman was enthralled with the “spectacle of violence, suffering, and pain”; however, the fact that it can indeed be thought of as spectacle makes me suspicious. His intellectual position is that the film eschews extensive exploration of the political ramifications of the 1981 Belfast Maze Prison protests, thus allowing for a more visceral, Passion-like presentation of an existential hellhole. To me, however, this was to the film’s disadvantage. It’s so easy to get lost in (maybe even enamored with) the film’s technical virtuosity that one can forget to ask what purpose the heavy formalism serves and also whether that formality achieves its objective.

I heard the director — the other Steve McQueen — speak at the IFC Center in Manhattan following a screening, and he said his goal was to portray the microscopic world of the prisoners, removed from the larger political realities outside the prison walls. Maybe, but after hearing his enthusiasm in describing the technical assemblage of several scenes (free from any political considerations), I got the impression that much of the film’s brutality exists as an end onto itself. That’s not a problem on its own, provided that such is unequivocally the method behind the madness. But here, it seems the pretension of addressing individual struggles within a larger political context acts as a veneer to conceal a morbid fascination with not only suffering and torture, but also the method by which they can be made most unpleasant on-screen.

Other members of the audience swooned over the film’s sound design and cinematography (rightfully so), but seemed unable to remove themselves from the grip of its cinematic legerdemain and examine whether the film actually had anything interesting to communicate. If it’s the importance of individual stories, I knew that. If it’s that physical suffering can be unbearably unpleasant, I knew that too. And returning to Hoberman’s argument, I’m having trouble interpreting the refusal to address greater political significance as a positive.

The film’s most conspicuous attempt at intellectual engagement comes during a massively distended dialogue between Bobby Sands, the most notable of the hunger strikers, and a wise-cracking, world-weary priest. If this scene can’t be thought of as an entire third of the film, it is certainly a protracted interlude that bridges two halves of hellacious human anguish. It’s by far the best stand-alone scene, and it’s filmed mostly in a single two-shot. But it’s also the first real exposure we get to Sands, who is ostensibly the centerpiece of the film, and by now, it’s too late to expect significant emotional investment from the audience.

As we hear Sands expound upon his philosophy, it becomes clear that McQueen is pleading with us to invest in Sands’s martyrdom, so that we’re even more moved when we subsequently see Sands writhing in malnutritive agony, his emaciated frame covered in sores and lesions. But it’s tough to feel emotional attachment to a man we hardly know, especially with all those artful sound edits, dissolves, and superimpositions.

At the film’s conclusion, McQueen can’t avoid giving us the ubiquitous post-narrative intertitles. (Why do filmmakers insist on this haphazard method of narrative closure?) There are several of these text blocks, and each made me wonder not only why we’re told and not shown, but also why they’re necessary if the film is supposed to focus solely on the visceral nature of the prison strikes.

Never mind that we don’t feel like reading after an extensive sensorial flogging.